September 23, 2016

Yesterday, I got three clusters of enoki mushrooms from the friend of mine who runs an enoki factory.
昨日は、エノキ工場を経営するお友達からエノキを３つもらいました。

Probably the very best way to consume them is to have them all as part of last night's supper while they were still fresh, but unfortunately, my wife had already made the soup for the supper.
So, I decided to store them all.
この新鮮なエノキを消費する最善の方法は、まだ新鮮なうちに昨晩の夕飯に全部食べてしまうことでしょうが、あいにく、妻がすでに夕飯の汁を作った後でした。
というわけで、全部保存することにしました。

CAUTION: DO NOT RINSE CULTURED MUSHROOMS WITH WATER. YOU DON'T HAVE TO.
注意： 栽培されたキノコは水洗いしないでください。水洗いする必要はありません。

Cut the enoki to the desired lengths.
えのきを好きな長さに切ります。

Put it in an I-Wrap bag and store in the freezer, not the fridge.
アイラップに入れて、冷蔵庫ではなく、冷凍庫にしまいます。

What to do with the rest near the bottom? I decided to dry it.
底部に近い残りはどうするか？干すことにしました。

Left: Portions to be dried.
Right: Portions to be composted (I mean, to be simply tossed on the ground)
左：干す部分
右：堆肥にする（というか、ただ地面に捨てる）部分

I later broke them into smaller pieces to accelerate the drying.

乾燥を速めるため、小さく割きました。

I'm going to use the dried pieces like "hoshi kaibashira" (dried adductor muscels of scallops).

I have found that 20% sugar is just too much, making the umeboshi wrinkled up, so I have decided to add only 10%. The resultant umeboshi are plumper and less sweet, and therefore, much more suitable as an accompaniment to hot plain rice.

September 9, 2016

Just wanted to share photos of the home-made kyoho jelly that my wife made for our daughter for her birthday. Kyoho is a variety of grape very popular in Japan, an it's often called the King of Grapes.

The jelly was, without doubt, the most delicious jelly I have ever had. My wife told me about the secret ingredient. She said it was a "collaboration". "What?! Collaboration?," I asked. She explained that the jelly contained the ume syrup that I had made.

(Disregard the container, which has nothing to do with the home-made jelly. She used the container to make the jelly look more delicious.)